Personal Training in New Zealand

Your Top tips for surviving Spring Racing Carnival!*

With the Spring Racing Carnival upon us, we have collated our
top tips for helping you navigate the multitude if events without
jeopardizing your health and fitness results!

1. One drink
then one water:While we want you to be able to
savour the experience of sipping Veuve Cliquot in the Birdcage, the
free flowing gold liquid can wreak havoc on your results! Each
glass of champagne is 90 calories and that is equal (in energy) to
approx. 22.5g of carbohydrates-which is the equivalent to 2 slices
of Helga's Low Carb Bread, 1 Red Apple or 100g of potato. While
it's easy to down 5 (or more!) glasses of champagne in an afternoon
at the races-imagine if you were spending your afternoon eating 10
slices of bread! So, to minimize the damage from that bubbly-for
every glass of champagne you drink, drink a glass of water and or
sparkling water. This will also help with the hangover the next
day!

2. Do a training
session BEFORE the races!While you may have the
best of intentions for going to the studio or a run post races,
chances are you will eat a little too much, drink a little too much
and have pretty sore feet and you just wont make it. So, to ensure
you stay on track with your training (particularly during Cup week)
schedule your training in the morning before you have to start to
get ready. Not only will you ensure you have kept to the plan but
training in the morning will give you feel good endorphins to
ensure you have a great day and might just help you make some
better choices on food and alcohol during the day, as we often find
that immediately following a training session people are less
likely to make bad decisions as they don't want to "un-do" their
good work.

3. Have an
Accelerator Day in between big race days.Particularly during Cup week, try to have an accelerator in
between the big race days to help minimize any damage caused at
your functions. An accelerator day is a lower carb day and helps
your body to burn through your carb stores and put you into a state
of ketosis (fat-burning). Make sure you drink lots of water during
these accelerator days and if you can manage it do some low to
moderate cardio too.

4. Get plenty of
sleep!We don't want to be the fun police but if you
can call it quits earlier in the evening and be in bed ready to
have 8-10 hours sleep while attending these race day functions, you
will be in a much better position to one: be able to get up and
train in the morning (see tip 3!) but also two: lower your cortisol
levels and help your body repair and heal. Sleep is more and more
proving to be the most important ingredient in a health and fitness
program as it helps your body to heal, restore and repair and helps
you to bring your stress hormone cortisol down which when this
hormone is high inhibits fat burning. So, try to enjoy your day at
the races but get home and into bed at a reasonable time to get
your beauty sleep!

Spring racing is always a highlight on the Melbourne social
calendar and we want you to have a great time but also want you to
be able to continue to get great results so hopefully these tips
will help you have the best spring racing carnival ever!